Doubling Bertinet Doughs
hello, im new to this forum but ive been reading for about a year now and its really helped me and answered lots of questions.
i enjoy making breads and pastries so much that i have recently thought about doubling and tripling certain doughs so i can make a variety of baked goods instead of just 1 type.
last week I doubled Richard Bertinet's sweet dough recipie but as i was working it, the dough remained very sticky even though it seemed to be smooth and elastic(i have no trouble with the stickiness when following the standard recipe). I had been working it for a good 20 mins but I wasnt happy with it and gave up. Was I right to double all the ingredients? Including the eggs?
also i would like to double his olive dough recipe so that i can make focaccia and parmasan and parma ham slices on the same day.
p.s im not sure what forum to post this in so i played safe and chose general.
I've used several of Bertinet's recipes as well as others, and almost always bake much larger batches than the original recipe is for (I bake for customers). I haven't noticed any problems caused specifically by scaling up the recipe. Different doughs perform in different ways on different days. Even eggs can be slightly different weights and could change the dough character slightly. One bag of flour might have absorbed more moisture, or the ambient temperature or humidity in your kitchen will also affect the 'stickiness' of the dough.
Get to understand how the dough 'should' feel and don't be afraid to adjust flour or liquids as required to get the dough to where you want it to be. But do give it time - one mistake we've all made at some point is to add too much flour in early stages, resulting in tough tight dough later on.
Did you use cups or grams? - his books are printed in cups for the US market... Which is something I'm a bit miffed at as I got given one for a present and the person who got it for me obviously bought a grey import back to the UK - with cup measurements in it (and, fortunately ounces) Bertinet lives/works in the UK.
I always use grams for weights and not had any issues scaling up like that - however egg sizes might be different.
But that notwithstanding - do tweak it a little - if it's too wet for you just add a little more flour. You really do not have to stick to the exact recipe gram for gram - just use it for a basic idea then adjust for your own preferences. I make his sweet dough slightly differently too - so then it's not his recipe, but mine... What I do is this:
Put jug on scales. Zero scales. Crack eggs into it. Top up jug with milk to desired weight. Then you'll always have the right liquid no matter what size the eggs are. Just work out the hydration - so for a 500g flour recipe at 65% hydration, then you're looking for 325g liquid - so for more consistency do the weighing trick and always get that 325g milk+egg mix. (And I often buy trays of mixed-size eggs as they're cheaper, so this way works perfectly well)
A lot of commercial recipes specify eggs by weight for this reason too.
I also do oil by the gram too - in the quantities we're using here for small numbers of loaves the actual difference between ml of oil and grams is not worth bothering with.
-Gordon
Thanks Lazy Loafer. I will keep trying and adjusting the recipe then and hopefully it will work out.
drogon, i weigh all the ingredients in grams and yes i will tweak the recipe from now on instead of sticking to exactly what it says.